My Husband Says I Died Three Years Ago
A TaleDale Story · Story concept by Nora Ashwick
We had seventeen minutes until midnight.
Chen reached the broken window first. A dark figure crossed between the parked trucks, moving with the stiff left leg I had noticed when Henry entered. Two armed men followed him, but neither raised a weapon. The surrounding force was not chasing him.
It was escorting him.
"That's not Vivian's team," Anna said.
"No," I answered. "It's his."
Celeste locked the rear door while Julian pressed a hand to his bleeding lip. The stolen brass key was less important than the truth it had unlocked: the man directing us had arrived in Henry Mercer's face, but we still did not know who wore it.
Gabriel crouched beside the prosthetic strip. "Medical silicone. Hand-painted capillaries. Vale's reconstruction lab could make this, but the fit would take months."
"Could Henry himself need a mask?" Julian asked.
Gabriel shook his head. "Not of his own face."
My phone still showed North's message. I typed one line.
WHO ARE YOU?
The reply arrived before I lowered the screen.
THE MAN YOUR HUSBAND BURIED.
Julian read it over my shoulder. "My father."
"You just said that wasn't his face."
"After the bridge crash, there was no viewing. Closed coffin. Vale paperwork." His eyes met mine. "Maybe the face I remember was never the one he was born with."
Celeste took the prosthetic strip from me and turned it toward the light. A dusting of gray makeup covered one edge, but underneath I saw a row of tiny punctures. They matched the anchor marks behind her own reconstructed ears. Whoever had worn Henry's face had not put it on tonight. That person had lived inside it long enough for the skin to heal around the disguise.
This deception had started years before tonight.
The printer started again. This time it produced a map of the freight yard with a route marked to the eastern gate.
"A trap," Chen said.
"An exit," I replied. "North wants us at the church."
"Then we don't go," Celeste said.
"The clean key is there. Without it, midnight freezes thousands of innocent identities."
Anna looked toward the wall behind which Lucy waited. "Then we go."
I inserted the capsule into Henry's reader. A password field appeared, followed by a photograph of my broken watch stopped at 2:17.
Two seventeen was not a time. It was a date: February seventeenth.
I entered 0217.
The capsule opened three files. One was Julian's complete replacement identity. One was the cancellation command. The third contained a thirty-second audio recording.
My own voice filled the room.
"If North reaches Elena before I do, do not cancel the network. Activate the flood protocol. Trust Celeste with my face. Trust Anna with my name. Do not trust the man who says he is Henry Mercer."
The recording ended.
Celeste let out a humorless laugh. "You could have been more specific."
"I thought I had been."
Julian pointed at the file date. "This was recorded the night of the lake. After you gave Gabriel permission to suppress your memory."
So I had known North used Henry's identity before I forgot. I had also known Celeste and Anna would be here.
Chen studied the map. "The east route is clear on the cameras. Too clear."
"He needs us alive," I said. "At least until I open whatever is under that church."
The vehicles outside began advancing.
We left through a maintenance tunnel beneath the loading floor. Chen led, followed by Anna and Celeste. Gabriel carried the reader. Julian stayed beside me as concrete dust fell from the ceiling with every heavy footstep above.
"You never answered me," I whispered. "What did you agree to do?"
"Three days ago, I received instructions in your old cipher. Bring you to St. Orison before midnight, and North would release Lucy's identity from the transfer."
"You made a deal without telling me."
"I didn't know whether the sender was you."
"But you obeyed."
"I brought you to a freight office full of armed allies, not to the church."
It was a defense, not an answer.
At the tunnel exit, we found a black van waiting with its doors open. The driver had fled. A tablet on the seat displayed a live view of St. Orison's bell tower.
The camera tilted downward.
A woman stood beneath the bell, holding the stolen brass key. She wore Henry's coat, but the prosthetic face was gone.
Her real face was older than mine, burned along one side and unmistakably female.
Vivian appeared behind her with two guards.
"That's North?" Celeste whispered.
Gabriel went pale.
"No," he said. "That's Catherine Mercer. Julian's mother."
On the screen, the dead woman looked directly into the camera.
Then she held up a card on which she had written six words.
HENRY IS ALIVE INSIDE YOUR GROUP.